Splinter
by exultation
Summary: Sam Winchester had never been particularly intuitive. Dean-hurt, self harm
1. Chapter 1

_Note_: This is a sort of companion piece to _Fortress_. I apologise for any errors, inconsistencies and shoddy quality as I proofread myself. Please don't ask me questions about the science of molecular movement. Thank you for your time.

_Disclaimer: _I do not own any of the following characters.

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Sam Winchester had never been particularly intuitive, but if there was anything he knew well in this wide world at all, it was his brother.

Dean had always been the strong one. This was possibly because he was the elder, and possibly because Sam had been a bawling red-faced newborn the very first time Dean saved his life.

For years after (and though Sam wouldn't admit, not on pain of death; right through Stanford and out again, until that fateful night), Dean had been the Hero, the unbreakable, his anchor, protector and only constant in their shifting lonely life. He could laugh in the face of terror, come out of a hunt bloodied yet always alive, put the fear of Dean in the bullies that picked on studious little Sam and still have time to _make those salami sandwiches for me, Dean, with the mustard and the onions and the crusts off plee-ease._

Dean had been Superman, before Sam even knew Superman existed.

He had been in sixth grade, possibly, before he realised his brother wasn't infallible. That under the strength and cocky self-assurance lay _fear_ and _sorrow_ and _guilt_ and _despair_, all laid painfully bare on the sky blue floor of his father's hospital room. But his brother soon covered himself up again, expertly and meticulously smoothing over the flaws in his armour with jokes and smiling eyes and loud, loud laughter.

Sam had almost gotten used to the many masks his brother wore, accepted them as part of living this life they lived. The ease with which Dean hid everything almost made Sam forget that he hid anything at all, and he could very nearly have accepted this laughing caricature as his brother.

But recently, uncomfortably, he felt like he had spent the past few months watching the high walls of his brother's fortress fall, brick by lonely brick. It really hadn't seemed like much at first. A strange look in his too-bright eyes, an odd set to his jaw. His lips drawn uncharacteristically thin and the small staccato silences that suddenly grew into emptiness that Sam couldn't pull him out of. The flickering sadness that rearranged itself into a careful painting of smile when he felt Sam's eyes on him, and the bright, almost-genuine laughter, _C'mon, Sam, let's get out of this damn rat-hole and hit up that bar we passed_, when moments ago Sam would have sworn left right and centre there were tears in his brother's eyes.

He had asked, tried to milk clues and secrets and sometimes he felt, the key to fuckin' Shangri-la, from his brother's unwilling lips. But that was the problem with being a damned Winchester. Stubbornness was a streak that ran deep, and if anyone tried to pull you somewhere you weren't prepared to go, you dug your heels in deep and gave them the best tug-o-war they ever had. And that streak went deeper in Dean.

So Sam had let it go, as best as he could. Turned his face away from his grieving brother and his quiet pale not-Dean-at-all expressions and snuffed out the little voices that screamed to _help him help him help him help him_.

'Til tonight.

Tonight, he had come back from - from a little _excursion_, he thought with vehemence and guilt and just a tiny amount of self-loathing - to a dingy little motel room he couldn't stretch in and the sharp iron smell of blood in the air.

It was auto-pilot mode from then. He slid himself in noiselessly, reaching for the little knife in his jeans, _as if a fucking pocket knife would do any good against something that had just mauled Dean motherfucking Winchester_ he would think dryly to himself later, and pressed against the cheap peeling wood of the bathroom door. The silence inside buoyed the little bubbles of fear growing in him and he stepped back and heaved his shoulder against the door and it suddenly seemed to him as if he had burst into some long-forgotten scene dredged out of his deepest darkest nightmare.

Sam was sure his brother was alive, because his head had snapped up at Sam's grand entrance and there were Dean's own guilty eyes staring at him in horror. But everything else was telling him _no no no_, the blood pooling like cheap wine on the linoleum tiles and the familiar sharp little knife dyed red that he was _sure_ had been used to stab Dean because it was dyed red for fuck's sake, it was _dyed red_; and most of all, the numerous angry open mouths screaming from his brother's arms and legs and chest that he couldn't, he refused to, acknowledge. He stumbled, eyes still fixed on Dean and his green green eyes, _because looking there would mean looking nowhere else_, his own back pressed hard against the wall as if he was trying to melt into it and repeating the _oh god oh god oh god _that was like the thundering white noise trailing on and on in his head.

Forever stretched on before he was sharply brought back to the macabre scene on hand by a mild little sound of a throat clearing and looked at his brother, really _looked_ at him. And Dean had smiled wistfully and rather sadly, blood drying on his cheek and forehead just there, where he had rested against his arms and said, 'You're back early, Sammy.'


	2. Chapter 2

'It's nothing, Sammy.' Dean exhales a little, defeatedly. He is subdued, a little less _Dean_ and a lot more _depressed stranger._ 'I told you. It's just something I go through, off and on. Sometimes, it makes me act a little... a little strange, you know? But it never affects anything important. Never affects hunts.' His lips curl in a strange little half-smile and Sam recoils slightly, wondering to himself _who is this person? _ 'I get through it. Always have, always will.'

That shuttered look is back, that look that is so _fucking wrong_ on his big brother's face and Sam is screaming red-raw inside.

'Please, Dean,' he says quietly. Sam wants to get on his knees and beg and pray that the last few hours haven't happened and maybe, just maybe, if he is good enough and has combed his hair and brushed his teeth and not eaten the last of the Lucky Charms, his ever elusive God will grant this one wish.

'I just want to know how to help. You're not acting –,' he pauses and licks his dry lips nervously. 'You're not acting _normal_. That thing back there. All that... all that,' his voice shudders as the memory of the sea of blood and his brother's smile burns in his mind. Sam wants to sound forceful and the scared, trembling whisper that worms its way from his lips pisses him off. 'God, Dean, that wasn't in any way normal.'

'I don't know what you want me to say, Sam!'

Sam starts at the sudden heat in his brother's voice. He looks up, worried and guilty and pleading, but Dean - Dean's jaw is clenched tight and there is fire and warning in his eyes. 'I _told_ you I'm fine!'

Sam is tripping to his feet, feeling like a clumsy fourteen-year-old again, and he tries out that calming gesture he learned in that stupid touchy-feely body language class Jess made him sit through. 'Okay, just relax–'

'Just fuckin' drop it, alright? I don't need the fucking carebear bullshit or those fucking hurt puppy dog eyes. You didn't care when you and Dad were yelling the house down every night or when you up and left for Stanford. You don't get to fucking care now. _You have no right to!_'

Sam is left stunned and wordless at this sudden explosion and it feels like Dean has just sucker-punched him in the gut.

'I deal the way I deal, the way I've _always_ dealt with things, and it's not going to change whenever you decide to waltz back in for a little family reunion. You never said _anything_ before, even when you saw, and I _know_ you fucking saw. Just because you find me sitting in a little blood, you freak and all of a sudden _care_? Who the fuck do you think you are, Sam?'

The worst bit of it all to Sam, just slightly worse than the words thrown like little poison daggers, is the tiny crack in his brother's voice. Cracks like that fracture and rent and then, before you know it, there are shattered pieces all over the floor, too numerous and too fragile to glue back. A sudden thought comes to Sam's mind, a little white-hot glow sitting among the rest of his muddled thoughts, taunting him. _He is going to lose his brother._

The sudden choking silence is overwhelming in the dusty little motel room, as Sam holds his breath, staring, staring, staring at Dean and willing him to see how much he wants to fix everything.

'Fuck this,' Dean eventually mutters, grabbing his jacket from where it sits in a crumpled heap.

Panic rises to the back of Sam's throat at the thought of his brother disappearing into the night, _tonight_. 'Dean,' He says, too quickly and too loudly. 'Where are you going?'

His brother doesn't answer as he stalks towards the door, boots _clomp-clomp-clomping_ heavily. In later years, Sam will sometimes hear that noise in his sleep, a persistent little nightmare. It will never fail to wake him up, and sometimes, he chokes _Dean_ as he claws the empty air in front of him, trying to pull a shadow back.

Dean pulls the door open, and pauses on the threshold. Sam can't stop shivering and he blames it on the freezing wind blowing in from the open door. He can see the white knuckles on Dean's hand on the door jamb, shaking fist so tightly clenched he is sure the knob will break off and he tries to put everything of himself into the next two words.

'Dean. Please.'

It seems to work and Dean sighs softly and visibly uncoils as little clouds of mist curl in the darkness outside. 'I'm just going to get some air.' He turns back but his eyes are clouded and fixed on the scummy carpeted floor. Sam watches his brother's Adam's apple move as he swallows, frowning at something that Sam can't see. 'Go sleep, Sammy. It's been a long day. I'll be back soon.'

The wavering smile on Dean's face and the quiet click of the door tears Sam's heart to shreds.


End file.
